Severus Snape and the Curse of Voldemort
by Lady Devonna
Summary: The harrowing saga of Severus Snape, the Hogwarts years through present. Thrills, chills, angst, covert missions, contraband quiditch, and 782 ways to annoy James Potter.
1. Default Chapter

"Albus..." Cornelius Potter eyed his old teacher with badly disguised disbelief. "Why do you think this is any more than the usual pureblood rubbish?"

Albus Dumbledore pushed an overlong salt-and-pepper lock out of his eyes. "Because Thomas is hardly the usual pureblood."

"Tom?" Amelia Bones looked slightly puzzled. "I thought we were talking about this Voldemort character."

"Tom Riddle is his real name," Cornelius said tiredly. "You'll remember him, if you think about it."

"That quiet, sweet little genius who lived in an orphanage? But he wasn't a pureblood... I always heard him going on about his muggle father. Didn't seem to care for him much, but there you have it." Amelia slipped off her glasses; magnifying her eyes emphasized confusion.

Albus sighed again, surveying the room with outward calmness. "I have always been somehow suspicious about him, even as a student. I later discovered that all the monster Hagrid was found with was, though illegal and arguably dangerous, a mere Acromantula."

"You're probably the only person in the damn universe who'd use the phrase 'mere Acromantula' with a straight face." Skye Sparrowhawk leaned back against the sofa cushions, smoking and looking pointedly out of place. As the American Ambassador to the Ministry of Magic, he was an invaluable asset, but also a particularly annoying human being.

"I apologize for understatement, of course." Albus wished desperately for a good cup of coffee, one of the very few things he couldn't conjure himself up. "But an Acromantula is an enormous _spider_. Its victims are wrapped in silk and drained of juices. Myrtle was discovered without a mark on her."

"So, Dumbledore, you're accusing Tom Riddle of opening the Chamber of Secrets and attacking muggle born students at the age of sixteen."

"I didn't say that, actually, Longbottom." He was torn between smiling and snapping again. Lucretia Longbottom had that effect on him, and had since their mutual schooldays. "Implied, perhaps, but not—"

A sudden burst of conversation from the hall cut him off. He hadn't even identified both voices when the door burst open. Aberforth Dumbledore stepped in, wearing a belled jester's hat with bright orange robes and smiling contentedly. "Says he's a friend of yours, Alby."

From behind him, looking furtively left and right as if he expected to be cursed from behind, reeking of stale gin, Hector Snape stumbled into the room. Assorted gasps, snarls, and one muttered curse came from all the room's various occupants, except Skye, who looked confused.

Hector caught the arm of Amelia's Chair (she immediately scooted away) and looked blearily up at Albus. "Tom... Voldemort, wotever! There wash three... Gor, I got outta there! He—I dunno, he might be—"

Biting down disapproval, Albus pointed his wand almost languidly at Hector. "_Sobrius_."

Immediately, Hector drew to his considerable full height, more than a head above Dumbledore's, and shook his head with a grimace. Far from being more coherent, though, he went white, slapped a hand over his mouth, and screwed his eyes shut for a moment. Finally, he spoke again. "Twas Tom. He and some, er, others... They got ahold o' a couple muggles. Don' go lookin' cus there's nothin' left t'find. He was laughin'... He laughed..." He put his hands over his face and sobbed throatily.

Albus swallowed years of dislike and disdain. He put an arm over Hector's shoulders, standing on tiptoe to do it, ignoring the incredibly filthy state of his former student's robes. "Does anyone else think I'm overreacting?" Heads shook in unison, creating a slight, refreshing breeze.

"What happened, exactly, Snape?" Amelia apparently couldn't help but assume the strangely timid superiority Hufflepuffs tended to display towards Slytherins.

Hector was distraught enough not to notice. "Him and the Death Eaters... That's wot he's callin' us—them. They caught a couple muggle kids pokin' around where he's got his place. Doin' no harm t'all... Just bein' kids. Huh..." He shot a pointed glance at a bottle of Ogden's Old Firewhisky on the mantle, which Albus ignored just as pointedly. "I'm not gonna say... I can't say... They're dead, that's plenty. An' he laughed."


	2. Riddle's Revenge God, could that title b...

A/N: Hmm... regrettably short chapter, that last one. It was simply finished; what can you do? Well, this one at least has a weightier wordcount. By a little. I'm a fan of dragging out of suspense. Or lazy.

On another note, terribly sorry for the delay, here. Intense and extended computer failure.

It was clear that no further details of what had actually _happened_ were forthcoming. Albus tried another approach. "So, what'd _you_ do?"

"He saw I weren't—Weren't helpin' none, an' took me aside a bit. He said, uh, that I, shouldn't feel, erm, misguided sympathy fer the obligations forced on me, an', eh, that I oughta embrace m'pure an sacred blood. An' like that. Took me a bit afore I realized he meant the family." Hector paused to stare vacantly into space, a more pained expression than usual on his face. He didn't even seem to be looking at Ogden's best. "I love my Elsie. I wuddn'a done what I done in the first place if I didn't. An' the brats... They're mine, y'know. I may not'a done too well by 'em, but they're my kids. I love 'em."

Hector paused too long, and Lucretia obviously couldn't help herself. "Fine job you've done of it."

Aware of Hector's basic impulse to injure grieviously anyone who upset him, Albus stepped in. "Please, Longbottom."

"Naw, she's right." With a throaty half-sob, he went on. "S'only thanks to that boy o' hers that mine's turnin' out a bit o' decent. Anyhow, that's what I told him. Never saw anyone look that... I was scared t'death o' him. Him as I've known these twenty years at least. Hell, I just got outta there. He yelled after me... Well, not even yelled... He said there's no hidin' from Lord Voldemort, an' I'll rue the day I betrayed m'own blood. Hell, he always talks like that, but it scart me good that time."

Albus was moved as much as triumphant, but kept his head. "This meeting is hereby adjourned. We'll discuss further as soon as possible."

"So now it's a meeting? Shouldn't meetings have cookies?" Skye looked around, apparently pleased at being the only one in the room callous enough to be flippant. He shrugged and filed out with the others, though his voice echoed irritatingly as he left, exchanging noisy pleasantries with Aberforth.

Albus looked back around to Hector. "How do you plan to get home?"

"Uh... Dunno." Hector shrugged. "Broom finally fell apart on me. Can't apparate, y'know that. Can I borrow a fist o' floo powder?"

"Yes." Albus pulled a jar from the mantle. "And, in fact, I'll come with you. I'd like a word with Oran."

With another shrug, Hector tossed too much floo powder onto the fire. "Number twenty-seven, Privet Drive." Albus followed.

His first impression was simply of an incredibly dingy kitchen that smelled rather strongly of mildew and horklumps. Stepping out of the hole in the wall that served as a fireplace, he was about to call Oran's name when a strangled scream echoed from the other room. Albus drew his wand and dashed through the empty doorframe.

All he took in was Hector, leaning over a dark form. "_Lumos_." The room snapped into view.

Corpses. Five of them. Collapsed across a broken chair, spine at an impossible angle, was a short, clean shaven, respectable version of Hector, his wand (twelve inches, aspen, fairly whippy, equipped with a fine Opaleye's heartstings) several feet away. Oran's daughter, Maeve, lay nearby, in a pool of her own blood, face obscured by a magnificent mane of brown hair and the scattered splinters of what had once been _her_ wand. Almost indistinguishable, spitting images of their father, Marcus and Tulius had fallen side by side, whereas in life they'd been ever at odds, if their school careers were any indication. Their sister, Julia, appeared to have fallen down the stairs, presumably in pursuit of something. She wasn't known to have ever fled anything in her nineteen years.

In Hector's arms lay Elsie. His incoherent sobbing made the spectacle hard to miss. Trying to control himself, Albus counted off. There were a few missing, assuming Oran's wife, Dierdre, hadn't also been present. Afraid of what he might find, Albus skulked up the stairs. The hall he found was as decrepit as the rest of the house.

Of the three he saw he saw, one door was missing, one was hanging open, and one had Dierdre Snape slumped against it, unconscious but breathing shallowly. Relieved but slightly numbed, he checked to be sure she was in no immediate danger and moved her away from the door.

He was prepared to blast the thing open, but it wasn't locked. Instead of _Aloharmora_, he found himself uttering a shielding spell and ducking a remarkably violent stunner.


	3. Three Underage Snapes With Venemous Temp...

Albus thought it highly unlikely that Tom Riddle was hiding in an upstairs room. Besides, he thought he recognized the voice behind the spell. "Vicky?" he said tentatively from behind the doorframe.

"God! Professor Dumbledore?" A very tall, powerfully built girl emerged from behind a trunk. "Is that you?"

"Victoria, please stop pointing that at me." She was a very unpredictable spell caster, and packed quite a punch for a sixteen-year-old.

"Sorry, Professor." She tucked the wand in her pocket. Albus wasn't sure if she was showing amazing resilience or didn't know what had happened. "Sev! Di! It's Professor Dumbledore! You can come out!"

"Sev fainted…"

"Well, okay, leave him there for the moment." Victoria was the president, captain, or manager of most of Hogwarts for a reason. "You come out here. And keep hold of that wand."

"Wand?" Albus looked down at her in disapproval, despite the situation. Diana was ten.

"Sev found it in a drawer. I figured it was best if she could send sparks out, at least." Di appeared, holding a large, clumsy wand like a cricket bat. "Give it to Professor Dumbledore."

Albus accepted the wand. He didn't recognize it, but pocketed it anyway. "Are you all alright?"

"Well, apparently our knight in shining armor is out cold… But you can't blame him. He's had the flu all week. Though how anyone got the flu in July…" Vicky shook her head majestically. Actually, most of her movements tended towards the majestic. "Aunt Dee had Lisha watch us. I think she's keeping an eye on Sev. She set me to guard the door."

Lisha. He'd forgotten the house elf. The lunatic house elf, but an asset nonetheless. They were a species noted for fearsomely loyal defense of children.

"How'd you know to look here, Professor?"

"Your father tipped me off." Albus swallowed. He knew many things, but not how to tell three children most of their family was dead for no reason but the whim of one man. Assuming they didn't know. "Stay here. I'm going in the check on Severus."

"Alright…"

He strode into the room beyond, which was really a large closet. A bedraggled, bleary-eyed teenage boy filled most of the floor space, though a tiny house elf dressed in doll's clothes occupied one corner.

Albus was only vaguely familiar with the Snape family elves, considered by most of their kind to be aberrations of the worst sort. "Lisha."

"Master Dumbledore." Her voice was lower than usual, and she managed a slight, clumsy curtsey.

"Professor?" Severus's eyes didn't seem to be focusing very well.

"The one and only. Are you alright?"

"Should I be?" He looked over his shoulder, to a crack in the floor through which Albus could see the charnel house that was once a lounge.

"You saw?"

"We all did. Fortunately, Diana has all the mental capacity of a retarded doxie, and Vic's not human." Sev folded his knees against his chest and stared vacantly at the ceiling.

"Care to come downstairs?"

"And run my father through with a rusty railroad spike? Sure, right after I run and select one from my rusty pointy objects collection."

"You can't blame him for what happened, Severus…" Again, Albus was faced with one of the few things no one could weather—an adolescent male on a mission.

"Actually, I think I can." He stood up, took a temperamental swing at a wall, and tipped over. "…Is it dark in here?"

"St. Mungo's. Now." An acute case of freak summer flu, while odd, was easily dealt with. First time tonight. "_Portus_."

"Isn't that illegal?"

"Many things are." He grabbed Sev's wrist and held his hand against the enchanted railroad spike, the presence of which worried him, and was aware of a guilty satisfaction as the surly, fevered pest vanished. He had every right to act this way and worse, but Albus was starting to feel the weight of his position.

"You sent him off? Good. And about Aunt Deirdre?"

"Victoria, has it ever once occurred to you that some things are a bit more necessary than organization?"

"Oh, shut up, I need something." She whirled on her heel to deliver some more orders, presumably to a cat who had just wandered in, and the heel broke. "Ack!"

"Are you alright?" Albus helpfully hauled her back to her feet.

"No!" Angrily, Vicky kicked off the offending shoe, and immediately toppled over again, off balance due to the single three-inch heel she had left. "Damn damn damn damn damn!"

Albus felt an insistant tug on his robes. When he looked down, Diana was staring up at him. She'd missed out on the height that ran strong in most of the family, and also the outsized Snape Nose. "Is Daddy downstairs?"

"Yes…"

"Good." She looked over at Vicky. "Do you know where Sev stowed his pointy objects collection?"

"Under his stupid record player, last time I had to steal a kitchen knife." She smiled innocently at Albus. "For cooking!"

"This was _not_ your father's fault," Albus said quietly.

"Oh, so _that's_ why…. Why _You-Know-Who_ opened with 'Reap the Whirlwind You've Sown, Hector.'" Victoria picked Diana up and tossed her sister effortlessly onto her back. "We're going to Lily's house. Let me know when you figure out whose fault it is."

"Vicky, shouldn't you put some shoes on?"

"I'll borrow Lily's."

"But your feet are bigger! And it's about six kilometers!"

"Shut up, Di." Vicky swept out of the room and Albus heard her padding down the stairs.

"Could have gone better, Sir. They's always been difficult childrens." Lisha, who'd been almost invisible for the whole exchange, bowed politely. "Best if Lisha attends Hector, Sir, but shall I show you out?"

"No, no thank you." He disapparated, disgusted with himself.


	4. No Snape is an Island

Sev teetered slightly as he turned the corner. St. Mungo's had gotten rid of his flu in about twelve seconds, and he hadn't wanted to wait for Albus Dumbledore to rescue him from overzealous, noxiously sympathetic Healers. However, setting out on an empty stomach, still slightly wobbly from two weeks of uninterrupted coughing, without even enough pocket change to take the Knight Bus, to walk from the heart of London to its pleasant, suburban outskirts had probably been a bad idea.

"Sixteen Elm Road… Sixteen Elm Road…" Sev's eyes nervously roamed the street. Though he spent as much of his time away from school as he could at this house, he had seldom arrived walking. Conveniently, a handsome bronze sign was affixed to the gate to the front lawn.

Longbottom

16

Home Sweet Home

He stepped through the gate, over a sleeping crup, and around the large statues, ivy, and yew placed strategically around the windows, to hide any magical goings-on in Longbottom's Concoctions: A Potion For Any Occasion. The store took up the house's lounge.

Sev ducked around back, to the kitchen door, and barely had his hand on the knocker when it swung open. Kingsley Longbottom smiled down at him. "Hello, Sev. I thought we might see you. Albus told me what happened."

"Um… Hi, Mr. Longbottom." There was really only one person he felt at all like talking to. "Is Frank here?"

"Last I checked he was happily roiling in teen angst locked in his bedroom. Come in." Sev tailed him into the spacious, tidy kitchen. "Oh, eldest son!"

"Coming!" Sev listened, comforted by familiarity, to the crash of a slammed door, the sudden clatter of hurried footsteps, a scrape, a swear, and the series of unpleasant bumps as Frank toppled down the stairs and landed at his father's feet. "If you all wondered, that _did_, in fact, hurt."

Sev hauled him up by the shoulders. "Quidditch?"

"Let's go." Wordlessly, they made their way to the basement door, and into the enchanted cellar, magically expanded to the approximate size of an international league quidditch field. As the Longbottoms were sandwiched in the suburbs, the enlargement spell was the only way to get any practice in, but it was nothing like playing outside.

There were five brooms hung on the wall, one for each Longbottom. Sev reached for the nicely aged Shooting Star that nominally belonged to Mrs. Longbottom. It was a lousy broom, but he'd ridden it so much he at least knew the feel of it.

"Uh, actually, Sev…" Frank sounded a bit nonplussed, which was uncommon. Sev turned and had a long, thin package thrust hurriedly into his arms. "It was supposed to be your birthday present, but, you know, since you're here anyway…"

Sev was gaping more than listening. He had just unwrapped a dream made broomstick. "A… Comet… 160…?"

"Yeah, well, Mom thought…"

"We both know damn well I'm poor. Stop being a mook."

Frank grinned. "What's a mook, anyway?"

"Phoebe says it." He swung reverently onto the broom. "Let 'em out."

"Don't you want a bat?" Frank threw one at his head. "Okay, they're coming."

Sev barely noticed, swinging at the bludger by instinct. He was still in shock over the broom. It didn't drag, wiggle, stick in midair, attempt to buck him off, jerk spontaneously to the left, make eerie cracking noises when he turned, or leave splinters where he'd rather not think about it. The second bludger almost hit him before he remembered what he was supposed to be doing.

Enjoying himself immensely, Sev dragged his mind back to the present and attacked the bludgers with a vengeance. His long time friends, rivals, and enemies were all the more amusing on a decent broom. _Whack!_ There went Tom Riddle. _Whack!_ There went James Potter. He didn't understand quite how whacking iron balls solved all his life's problems, the way even blowing things up in potions class couldn't, but he was damn grateful for it.

They practiced for hours. Sev was vaguely aware he was suffering acute exhaustion, but on a broom it didn't matter. When Mrs. Longbottom came down to make them eat, he was abrely aware of the time that had passed. Then the Longbottoms collectively knocked him into an enchanted sleep.

"That was sadistic, you know," said Sev conversationally, over breakfast.

"Mom thought it was a good idea. Stop hogging the bacon."

"Hey, man, nobody ever feeds me. I need this bacon."

"Aren't you two cute." Mrs. Longbottom dropped a lengthy letter on the table. "Apparently, Sev, you're supposed to join your Aunt and sisters at the Leaky Cauldron—" She waited for his squawk of righteous indignation to conclude. "On the thirty-first of August, to get your supplies. In the meantime, make yourself at home."

"Oh." Sev prodded his bacon with a fork, noting with satisfaction that it had all its tines and wasn't tarnished to black. "What else would I be?"

"That's both sweet and pathetic." She swept into the store.

"I can't decide, does your Mum hate me or just find me a minor stain on the landscape?"

"No, just a bacon glutton. Now share!" Frank lunged across the table and managed to knock a glass of orange juice over both of them and Sev off his chair. He managed to snatch the last strip of bacon, though. "I win."

"Did not."

"He said facedown in a pool of O.J."

"Get off me." Sev elbowed Frank in the ribs. "You weigh a hell of a lot for someone short."

"Who's short? I'm not short! You're tall, Freak!" Frank punched him in the arm. "I found an old copy of 'A Hard Day's Night' in the neighbor's trash. Wanna listen to it six or eight times and see if there's any discrepancies we can find between it and the old one?"

"Excellent." Sev shook his head, sending a shower of orange juice spattering around the kitchen. "And, I might note, my trained musician's ears sense your Mum coming back to see what we just did to the kitchen."

"It was a troll attack." Frank turned tail and leapt up the stairs three at a time.


	5. Do you REALLY gotta have friends?

Sev tuned Frank's brother's guitar contemplatively, plagued by the one question every budding musician must face one day. "Do I _have _to play rhythm?"

Frank, playing a repetitive riff on his bass, shrugged rather helplessly. "Talk to Phoebe. And then duck."

"Right, because it's totally viable that I would ever challenge her in anything." Sev put the guitar down. "She's better than me, right? So it would jeopardize the band if we switched."

"And she's the only person we know scarier than your sister. And she knows _karate_. And you've been bloody in love with her since we were sorted."

"I have not."

Frank stood up, pushed his hair over his eyes, and suddenly acquired a nervous tick. "Hey! Hey, Frank! Do you know that girl? If I turn my head like this, does my nose look smaller? What's her name? Is she looking over here? She's not a pureblood, is she? Does my hair look okay? Should I have washed it sometime this year?"

Sev flung the tuning fork at him. "I didn't say that."

"Yes you did."

"…Not the last part."

"Well, okay, your hair wasn't _that_ gross until puberty."

"Throw that back so I can throw it at you." Sev sighed and lay back on the bed. "If you tell her, I'll kill you. With, um, a stick. …I suck at guitar, don't I?"

"You're better at your cello. Maybe we could work that into the songs. It'd give us a unique edge." Frank thought for a minute. "We might actually get someone to listen to us besides my Mum."

"She just pretends to listen. But, hell. We've got a vision. What're we supposed to do, sell our souls to the masses?"

"I know. We're not about selling out, and doing whatever they want to hear."

The door opened, and Mrs. Longbottom stuck her head in. "I find you both somewhat unnerving when you talk like that. It's lunchtime, and you have a visitor."

"Each, or do we have to share?" Frank held his grin as his mother slammed the door. "Bet I know who that is."

"If it's Phoebe, I've seen this movie."

"You wish." Frank stood up, stretched, and led the way downstairs. Their visitor waved at them from the kitchen table, her feet up on the chair beside her, her mouth already stuffed with Mrs. Longbottom's prize mystery meat casserole. She was a rather plump girl, with untamed brown hair, wearing an expression of benign bemusement and a lot of glass love beads.

"Alice!" Frank slid around the table with an easy suavity Sev could never achieve, putting an arm casually over her shoulders and kissing her cheek. "Why didn't you tell me you were coming?"

She ignored him. "Sev, are you okay?"

"Of course I'm okay." Bracing himself for the inevitable, resenting Alice's kind nature with every fiber of his being, Sev helped himself to a plate and purposefully took a huge bite, rendering him unable to speak. The delay was long enough to think of a distraction. "Do you think I'm so petty as to resent my best friend's ability to get any girl he might desire and luck in finding the perfect one?"

Alice raised an eyebrow at him. "Nice try."

"I thought it was okay." Sev felt his carefully cultivated oblivion, denial, and normalcy begin to disintegrate. "Hey, you two snog for a while. I'm doing a run for clothes and to pick up Asclepius." He was vaguely aware of Frank starting to say something, and Alice cutting him off in her usual pleasantly abrupt way.

Sev plucked a pinch of floo powder from the bowl above the fireplace. "Number twenty-seven, Privet Drive." He stepped into the fire, gritting his teeth, and stumbled out into the kitchen. He'd been half afraid to find it full of either Riddle's minions or ministry types, but was greeted instead by a horrible emptiness. Sure he wasn't being observed, he flung himself into the corner and sobbed uncontrollably.

Cried out, he leaned back against the wall. He'd spent half his childhood in this corner, though it had ended when he'd gotten taller than the garbage bin that had protected him from the rest of the family. Well, actually, his father.

He rose and walked into the lounge. Someone had cleaned the corpses out, at least. Looking over his shoulder, he could make out the crack in the floor through which he'd witnessed the massacre.

Sev dropped into the dilapidated easy chair that had always been his father's. It smelled, not comfortingly, of cheap cigars and mold. He needed some serious thinking time.

Put in perspective, he hated most of his family and resented the rest to varying degrees. Equally in perspective, the least resented of the lot were the senselessly dead ones. Certainly, Mark was a jerk, his mother was a twit, Tully was a pansy, Maeve was remarkably uninteresting, Julia was preternaturally perfect, and Oran… Well, he couldn't think of a single thing that might possibly condemn his godfather, but it would come.

And it was hardly out of keeping with the rest of his life that the god forsaken pureblood bastards would be fine.

And his father.

Sev was shocked to realize the urge to kill his father was gone. It always did eventually disappear, and had been coming up less and less lately. Since the man had had to agree to sober up and stop hitting them to get them back.

He winced, his hand automatically straying to his knee. It didn't hurt anymore, and the limp had finally been spelled away. Even when it happened, getting kicked down the stairs by the worthless drunk he owed his miserable life to was a lot worse than some wrenched cartilage.

So was having no one to protect you but a timid, spiritless dimwit who could almost be said to deserve her husband. Except she was very decidedly dead, the most exonerating of all circumstances.

That was what haunted this place. Not the dead. Memories.

He stood, hoping it was bold resolution that moved him and not a subconscious urge to find somewhere better to cry. Starting up the stairs, he cupped his hands over his out and called, "Asclepius! Lisha! Nevermore!"

He was answered by a sound like the boiling of a teakettle with too wide a spout and a raucous croak in his, Mark's, and Tully's room. He wasn't ready to assume sole ownership. "Two down." Sev kicked the door until it popped open. Exactly what mechanism operated that door had always been a mystery to him. "Okay, guys. Did you miss me?"

"Nevermore"

"Oh, thanks." Sev flipped his hair out of the way so his raven could sit comfortably on his shoulder. "I don't care how cool that poem is. Learn to say something else."

"Nevermore."

"Bite me." He did. Sev glared. "One more and I'll get an owl, you hear me?" Tired of arguing with so limited a vocabulary, he directed his attention to the pet he could converse with coherently. "Asclepius? Dude? Where are you?"

The answer was an unseen voice, in hissing, eerie tones that would have raised the hairs on the back of any but the neck of love. _"Can you please speak parseltongue?"_

Sev acquiesced, but grudgingly. _"You understand English fine. This makes my throat feel all slippery."_

"_It's a snake thing." _The source of the voice, a seven foot najanaj (Indian cobra), slithered out from under Mark's bed. _"I'm hungry."_

"_I fed you last week. Your metabolism doesn't require anything beyond a good bi-monthly gnome feast."_

"_Then I'm feeling neglected. Oh, and I'm now sticking out my tongue petulantly."_ As Asclepius was heavily into his atmospheric, terrifying exotic snake persona, his tongue was usually flicking around. Sev understood the need for clarification.

"I've had a nasty couple of days, if you didn't notice. Bother me much more and I'll change your name to Nag and buy a mongoose."

"_You read to much. And you should wash your hair."_

"_I hate you."_ Asclepius slithered up Sev's back and coiled around him like some rather tasteless scarf, belt, and shawl, depending on the way the snake had chosen to drape himself. Ignoring the burden, Sev opened his trunk and pulled out an armload of robes, his wand, and a bag of books and potion ingredients. "Alrighty, guys. Either you help carry this junk or you're off."

"Nevermore."

"Must you always have the last word?" Sev looked around. "Where's Lisha?"

"With our sisters."

"Of course." With some careful maneuvering, Sev managed to get his bag over his shoulder and hold onto his robes. "Neither of you is helping. I hope I'm radiating disappointment."

"Nevermore!"

"Eat him, Asclepius."

"_Wouldn't you have to get an owl, then?"_

Grinning, and wondering how on earth he was supposed to get floo powder into the fire to get back, Sev felt his way down the stairs, unable to see over the robes. At least it didn't feel haunted, anymore.

"Sev, man, this is so messed up, I don't even know what's going on."

"Ahhhhh!" He shrieked and jumped a few feet in the air, dropping everything, and making Nevermore fly into the rafters with an indignant squawk as he spun around to face his exceedingly dead brother. "Tully?"

"Yeah…" Tully, newly translucent and hovering a few inches off the floor, tried to lean on the wall, but slipped through it. "Is there an instruction manual?"

Sev was still gaping. Normally he liked ghosts, but hanging around the Bloody Baron to discourage Potter was quite another thing. "You're—You're a…"

"No, I lost weight. You're supposed to be smarter than me." Tully looked miffed, but his face was too good-natured (just how he managed that with the severe profile and permanent scowl inherited from the Snape line was unclear) to hold the expression long. "What the hell do I do now?"

Sev swallowed and forcibly collected himself. He hadn't lost quite as much as he'd thought, perhaps, but according to the ghosts at Hogwarts, you weren't supposed to be a ghost. It was nice to have Tully, but he'd rather his brother was… wherever. Nearly-Headless Nick hadn't been too explicit on the subject.

Tully, meanwhile, was trying to pick a book up off the floor. He managed to twitch it a little from time to time, but it mostly just lay there. It looked immensely frustrating to Sev, but Tully was contentedly holding his smile and began to sing under his breath. "Chains. My baby's got me locked up in chains. And they ain't the kind that you can see…"

"Tully, shut up while I'm thinking."

"I thought the Beatles make you think better."

"Not in your voice."

"Huph. Have some respect for the dead."

Sev ignored this last comment. "Well… I guess you could come with me… Mrs. Longbottom probably wouldn't mind…"

"Please, dude. You're creepy enough to inflict on… Human society. I guess… I just… You know. Wanted to talk to someone. Go do your thing. I'll find you if anything develops." Tully waved his hand dismissively and sank through the floor.

Sev distractedly gathered all of his robes up again. "If anything else disturbing would like to happen, let it do so now!"

Asclepius raised his head and looked around. "Well, nothing happened."

"They're lulling us into a false sense of security." Sev somehow managed to get hold of a pinch of floo powder, and drop some onto the eternally smoldering coals left in the fireplace. Dumbledore had worked out the spell for his mother's convenience, as she obviously couldn't start a fire by magic.

"That's creative."

Ignoring his scaly companion, Sev stepped through the flames and landed back in the Longbottom's kitchen. Frank and Alice were, predictably, sucking face (to borrow another of Phoebe's phrases). Unnoticed, he traipsed up to Frank's room and dumped his belongings in a corner. Stopping only to pull Asclepius off his back, he collapsed on the bed for a none-too-peaceful sleep.


	6. Hogwarts Express 1

"Ah!" Not sure if the syllable had been a short sigh of relief or a protracted squawk of disgust, Sev sank into his seat on the Hogwarts Express. Frank was helping Alice look for some of her friends, and no one else would join him in a compartment. He savored the moment alone, a bittersweet relish.

The last few weeks of summer had been wonderful, far more than he deserved. The Longbottoms filled the gap his family had never occupied very well. Frank had forced him back to life, kicking him onto the quidditch field or into the library during his sullen fits. Alice had, simultaneously, without undoing her boyfriend's work, helped him accept the deaths as part of himself and as reality. He didn't know how they did it. He didn't deserve it. But the wounds were beginning to heal.

"Five knuts says that won't last."

"I never bet against the house."

"You don't have any money, either."

"_Neither do you." _Asclepius' way of answering when Sev was talking to himself was rather particularly annoying. As he considered what do do about it, the snake crawled onto his shoulders. _"Your friends are on the way."_

"_Is your use of the word 'friends' literal, sarcastic, or ironic?"_

"_Little of each."_

"_So…"_ Although Asclepius was theoretically a bog-standard giant cobra (and school rules about keeping any sort of "dark creature" as a pet dictated he had to be), he generally knew who and what was in the vicinity long before even the most acute reptilian senses could possibly tell him. Minor, contraband clairvoyance was very useful, properly utilized.

"Malfoy and his little friends, Potter and company, and Vicky."

"I feel so wanted." Scratching Asclepius's nose (he was shedding and claimed it itched), Sev waited for the storm to break. A nice healthy row with Potter might be invigorating, and Vicky didn't necessarily portend anything _really_ unpleasant, but anything to do with his blond, perfect, officiously pureblooded cousin sent chills down his spine.

Then again, did it? True, Sev had been perfectly capable of cursing or slugging anyone who bothered him for years (except Potter—it wasn't fair to be that fast), and he'd allowed Lucius Malfoy to order him around anyway. He'd always put it down to an inferiority complex he couldn't do much about. But if he thought about it, he'd just watched most of his family killed. How scary could that little pest really be?

"_Well, now abject, pointless, bleak misery has a upside."_

"Write a song about it."

"_Maybe I will." _ Sev leaned over to dig through his pockets for a scrap of paper and a pen. This was quite an operation, as his robe at the moment was Julia's old one, tailored very inexpertly by his mother to look a little less like it belonged to a girl, and the pockets were somewhat inaccessible as a result. Before he'd extracted writing materials, the door slid open.

Prepared for any variety of violent encounter (after all, most of the passengers probably qualified as enemies one way or another—it was his cuddly personality), Sev was almost disappointed when he saw who it was. "Wormfodder? What the hell do you want?"

Peter Pettigrew looked exceedingly miffed, and as exceedingly unable to do much about it. "That's 'Wormtail'."

"And ever so much more dignified?"

"Padfoot wants to know—" Pettigrew cut himself off and winced as though a warning stunner had clipped his ear on the way past, probably originating just out of sight to the left. "I mean… Is Sparrowhawk here?"

"Yes. Invisibly." Actually, that wasn't completely impossible, given it was Phoebe they were talking about. Wondering whether he had a death wish or was just bored, Sev cupped his hands over his mouth and called, "Hey! Phebes! Black sent his lapdog to scout you out again! Phoebe? Oh, yeah, that's right, _you don't like him_." It was somewhat satisfying to have vaguely protected the honor of the woman he loved, but, _damn_, that hadn't been nearly amusing enough to be worth getting himself cursed.

Steeling himself for any variety of violence, Sev was not disappointed. Black stepped on his little minion in his haste to get into the compartment, his eyes blazing. Potter was probably somewhere behind him, if still out of sight. "I've been wiser, haven't I?"

Deadpan understatement aside, he was fighting down panic. Pettigrew was no threat, and Lupin generally didn't take part in the random abuse, but Potter and Black scared the snot out of him. With Frank around, or, preferably, Phoebe, he wouldn't worry, but two against one, both of the two the equals or betters of the one (depending on the field of play), was odds even his father wouldn't take. He fumbled for his wand, then remembered that, shoul he be caught causing trouble on the train again, he was facing expulsion. Potter wasn't, interestingly enough, despite having instigated most of the trouble.

Black looked too incensed to remember they were both wizards. No causing trouble, and Black had an easy fifty pounds on him. Damn, damn, damn.

"I don't suppose you'd wait while I get a blunt object from my trunk?" Well, it might work. His beater bat was on top of his robes. It would only take a second. Maybe if he didn't fight magically…

"Where's Phoebe?"

Sev had only one option left. Luckily he was good at it. Driving people crazy until help arrived (or, really, just driving people crazy could do it). "You know, Phoebe explained it to me once. You don't actually _like_ her. You just can't stand that there's a girl who couldn't care less if you live or die, when you've spent your life surrounded by fawning ninnies impressed by your face and total, if faked, nonchalance. So, if you think about it, the second Phebes displayed any interest in you, you'd completely lose interest. Therefore, uh, therefore… FRANK! Curse him before he kills me!"

Frank either wasn't fast enough or had the prudence not to mess with a much nastier spellcaster. Sev had just enough time to curse all prudence before Black punched him in he eye. Where were his quidditch reflexes? WHERE?

"…Ow." The wounded eye swelled faster than he normally would have considered possible, and the other saw only painful sunbursts. Nope, couldn't see, definitely a liability. Hoping no authority figures were around, Sev snatched at his wand, hoping Frank would get out of the way quietly. He had nothing to aim at but sound.

Black spat something incoherent, and Sev felt a cut open along his nose. Very close to his other eye, in fact. Either his adversary had picked up something about strategy, or he just thought blind Sev would be funnier than near-sighted. "You are a _despicable_ human being."

Black muttered another curse, and before Sev could try to aim at the voice, his feet went out from under him. Upside down? Again? No imagination. "Did this last year. Frank, where the crap are you?"

"Keeping Potter from helping him. And it bites!"

Sev wanted to thank him, but the blood was rushing to his head something awful. His tongue felt all weird. His tongue also happened to be the least of his worries from the moment Black's fist met his solar plexus.

He was halfway through pitiful gasping when he heard a squawk and hurried footsteps in the hall. His left eye had finally cleared up, so he could immensely enjoy watching James Potter hurtle past the door, looking panicked.

"Detention for you!" In his wake, followed by Frank, strode an extremely short girl with a prefect badge pinned to her headband. She gave Black an excessively dangerous look. "Extensive pain for _you_."

"Hey, Phoebe." Black proved precisely how delusional he was by accompanying the greeting with a nonchalant toss of his obnoxiously elegant hair and a casual half wave.

Rolling her eyes, Phoebe tossed her hair as well, and hit Black hard across the cheek with the end of her three-foot braid. With a vague twitch of her wand, she dispelled the levitation curse, (probably) inadvertently dropping Sev on his head.

Looking completely bored, she hit Sev with four successive curses too quickly for Sev to catch, and hurled him out into the corridor. "Detention, too, when I get around to it!"

"Isn't that a little harsh?" Asked Alice, closing the door behind her as she entered.

"Frank, was I being harsh?"

"Corrupted by power, definitely. Harsh? Nah."

"Good. Wouldn't want to be harsh." Phoebe stretched luxuriously. "I had to get up _so_ early… Dad doesn't trust Luke and Lowell to get ready. So who has to help him rouse them? Well, Patsy does, actually, but she woke me up out of spite."

Sev had a feeling that hearing Phoebe talk about her family, almost as large as his and with more than a few eerie similarities (her pair of braindead older brothers and annoying little sister were really dead ringers for Mark, Tully, and Diana) should have brought them to mind and forced him back into protracted mourning, but instead he was quite happy watching twinkling of the myriad of little silver bangles tucked in the Gryffindor scarf around her waist. She was describing something about her summer trip to India, which was probably quite fascinating, but he wasn't quite up to listening.

"Oh, yeah, that reminds me. I got presents!" Sev turned his attention to the sparkling black paint on her fingernails as she passed a gilded statuette of something very Indian to Alice and a shirt she'd somehow made George Harrison sign to Frank. Although he certainly appreciated the little details of Phoebe's very odd taste in fashion, he really paid them attention to keep from staring at less innocent features.

"And something really special for you." She rounded on him, grinning broadly. "This took some smuggling, and, uh… Lucky for Dad's diplomatic immunity, huh? Not exactly for you… I got a friend for Asclepius!" Her hand plunged into her robes, and drew out a small, paper orb of white. Her grin widened further at the look on his face. "I'd tuck that in your robes pretty quick. An English summer isn't much like an Indian one."

"Phoebe…" Frank reddened slightly and elbowed Alice meaningfully.

Alice punched him in the shoulder. "Were you keeping that where you all think you were?"

"In my bra? Well, yeah. It was a good fit. I even wore Hibiscus perfume to make it feel at home. Mind you, ninety eight point six degrees is a little cool, but shouldn't have done much damage."

Sev tore his mind forcibly from where it had been heading and managed to be worried instead. "You do realize you might have had a baby… Is that a cobra?" She nodded. "Born with more than enough poison to kill you, scared, disoriented, and perfectly poised to bite you in several places?"

Alice snorted. "Yeah, mostly places that would be hard to explain to a doctor."

"She'd be dead long before a doctor got there."

"Way ahead of all of you." She held up a tiny bottle. "The guy who sold it to me threw in the antivenom free. I tested it, and it's genuine. Besides, by my calculations, our new little friend will be born shortly after the feast tonight, in a fine position to be quietly greeted by Asclepius and Sevvy."

"And if your calculations are wrong?"

"Be interesting, won't it?" Phoebe stretched again. "Well, like I said, I'm underslept. If someone could just kick me when we get there." With another yawn, she turned into a huge black coyote, climbed into the seat next to Sev, put her head in his lap, and immediately fell asleep.

"So, you keeping that eggshell?"

"Shut up, Frank."

"_That's a little disturbing, do you know that?"_

"Shut up, you."

"_I mean, do we tell the poor kid where she spent the first couple weeks of her life, or just not bring it up?"_

"_Not another comment from you until you give me a good reason for hiding under the seat while I was defying gravity there."_

"_Last time I bit him I almost ended up executed."_

"_Oh, yeah, forgot about that." _He'd gotten Asclepius off on the technicality that, strictly speaking, the snake wasn't a magical creature, and therefore out of the Ministry's jurisdiction.

Alice kicked him. "Stop talking to the snake, Sev. It's creepy."

"I'm creepy."

"He's got you there."


End file.
